


As the Moon Hung Proud and Bright

by tomato_greens



Series: Listen, Listen - music ficlets [18]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Pre-Femslash, Rape/Non-con References, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stiles,” D barks, breaking her out of her reverie. She looks caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation, insofar as D ever has actual facial expressions––in any case, she’s definitely been calling Stiles’s name for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As the Moon Hung Proud and Bright

**Author's Note:**

> Written to [Home](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJcyAVDApvE&feature=endscreen) by Mumford and Sons. 
> 
> The references to past non-con are very oblique but they are there; please be safe, internet! Nothing sexual happens at all in the story itself.

The panic attacks started three months before Stiles's mom died: after they knew she was going but before they knew when. Stiles's throat would close in on itself, her heart leaping up and choking her––"Close your eyes and breathe with me," her mom would say, holding onto both of her hands and counting. 

The last thing Stiles's mom ever said to Stiles, besides "I love you" and "Be good for your dad," was, "Remember to breathe, baby."

Stiles has been trying ever since.

Hyper-vigilance suits her, she finds, or perhaps she suits it, underneath the gnawing, gut-wrenching fear that now garlands her every breath. It's never been this bad before, but then, it's not a new feeling, either; she is weird and hyperactive and sweet-mouthed, so she's had her fair share of _I'll find a way to shut you the fuck up, Stilinski_. 

(She told her dad the first time it happened, freshman year after she started having to wear real bras, and he went totally, satisfyingly berserk, threatening the shit out of Kyle Toleano. But her father can't be everywhere and Kyle Toleano's got friends, and a week later they––well, after, she gets louder, more animated, thinks of them as bears: if she waves her hands enough, they'll think she's bigger than they are, see her as a threat.)

Scott doesn’t get it; Scott has never gotten it. He’s loyal and he loves her until the ends of the earth and they’re the closest thing to siblings each of them has got, but he doesn’t understand how––how fucking _fraught_ she is, in unceasing cycles, all of her skin on edge and her hands trembling with adrenaline at the slightest surprise. He’s got his wolfly powers and Allison and the advantage of not thinking things through all the time, which means he doesn’t play terrible things over and over in his head like Stiles does. 

Lydia gets it, Stiles knows with a certainty that makes her decade-old crush even more embarrassing, but she uses her money and her boyfriend and her beauty and, when she doesn’t think anyone’s looking, her brains to hide from it. Stiles hasn’t got any of those things––well, maybe a brain, but it doesn’t work the same way Lydia’s does, it doesn’t come as easy. Lydia will (ha!) throw her a bone once in a while, a pat on the shoulder, a lingering glance, will mention Peter like she’s packing a wound, all things that seem to say _I know you, Stiles_ , but––it’s not the same, and the last thing Stiles needs any more of is pity. 

“Stiles,” D barks, breaking her out of her reverie. She looks caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation, insofar as D ever has actual facial expressions––in any case, she’s definitely been calling Stiles’s name for a while. 

It’s not a good idea to zone out in the woods, and Stiles goes on the defensive just in case D is here to yell at her. “What?” she says, snappish, running her fingers through her buzzed hair.

“Come on, I need your help,” D says, holding her hand out.

Stiles takes it, pulling herself up with as much dead weight as she can––D doesn’t even waver, the ass. “Where did you go, and where did you put my D?” she demands, feeling better, quirking a grin up at her. “The Alpha I know never asks for help from anybody.” 

“I took a seminar,” D says, deadpan. 

Stiles cackles. “Awww, did the sourwolf learn the true meaning of adulthood?”

“Shut up,” D says, cuffing the back of her head, but gently, resting her hand at the nape of Stiles’s neck. It feels oddly proprietary. Stiles isn’t sure she likes it, but then she isn’t sure she doesn’t like it, either, so she doesn’t say anything, just tucks a hand in one of D’s jacket pockets.

“What are you doing?” D says, raising her weird eyebrows at Stiles’s hand. 

“I thought we were being physically demonstrative about our friendship or something,” Stiles says. “I was just playing along.”

D rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t remove her hand or, like, eviscerate Stiles or anything, so it seems like they’re okay. Her hair is braided today, fishtailed, even, which from the days of her long hair Stiles knows takes significant effort. Stiles suddenly wonders how much time D spends looking at herself in the mirror in the mornings, if she obsesses over the shape of her face the same way Stiles sometimes does on the days she can’t convince herself that she’s worth so much more than the too-square shape of her jaw or her weird mole-freckle things (her mom called them beauty marks, but she’s _so_ not thinking about that right now). 

But D is basically physical perfection wrapped up in leather and mystery, so probably not. 

Although D’s eyebrows are kind of...intense. In a hot way, though. Ugh, she isn’t thinking about this either.

“So what are we researching today?” Stiles asks as they make their way towards the Camaro.

D doesn’t say anything for a long time, long enough that once upon a time Stiles would have been nervous, but now just suspects maybe it’s not her mad Google-fu that D needs, after all. Maybe she was just––lonely, or something, although that doesn’t really make sense when you consider Erica and Boyd and Isaac. But who is Stiles to try and decipher D “Fucking Giant Engima” Hale?

“Did I ever tell you about Kyle?” she asks finally, after Stiles has already strapped herself into the passenger seat of the Camaro and started fiddling around with the radio.

“Kyle who?” Stiles asks. “Kyle Toleano? He’s some asshole at school––wait, is this related to the kanima? Shit, is there something else going on now? Has some other teenager become a shapeshifting nightmarish capybara or something, because I don’t think I can handle––”

D shakes her head, reaches out to stop Stiles’s nervous expulsion before she can really get started. “No, no,” she says, and takes a deep breath. “I used to date this guy,” she says, which is a surprise in and of itself: for all that D wields her body like a weapon, Stiles always got the impression that she played for the same team Stiles does. “His name was Kyle.”

“Oh,” says Stiles, not sure where to go with this information. “I take it it didn’t end well?”

“You could say that,” D says, and huffs out a laugh. “I didn’t finish. His name was Kyle––Kyle Argent.”


End file.
